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“Have you ever considered simply living a life, enjoying the mountain of gold and countless seductive girls, just like the way I live?” asked Sekiada, his eyes locked with Dansh’s, which were filled with rage.
“Why did you save them?” asked Dansh through gritted teeth. “They’re here to kill you.”
“Have you ever considered a life where you can be your own boss?” Sekiada continued, ignoring him, “not a servant—or should I say a slave—of Dali? A life of your own making, following your own orders, not always in dread that she may end your life?”
“I asked why did you save them?” Dansh repeated, raising his voice. “Answer my question before you test my patience, insulting my lady.”
“No one can kill me. I’m immortal,” he said, his voice full of ego and a sense of inflated prominence. “You and Dali are weak and idiotic. I have reversed Dali’s spell. I have a boon of immortality from Lord Brahma—no weapons, animals, or humans can kill me.”
“You’re crossing boundaries, insulting our lady,” Dansh warned. “You’ve helped Dali so far, providing your evil force, a small number of rakshasas, rakshasis, churels, and daayans—but the rest would never have joined in attacking the world without her name attached to you, without another great immortal’s regime. Appreciating that small help you have given, I’m choosing to forgive you.”
“If I wished, I could end your life in seconds, you know. Then, Dali’s.” Sekiada paused for a moment, glowering. “I won’t lie. Using Dali’s name, I have gathered all the evils I need. I did everything for my benefit, not Dali’s. She was never my lady. I just wanted to bring all the demons together.” Sekiada sighed. “I have won their trust, showing them my service to Dali was real, but my greed! I want to win the earth and the Heaven.”
All the time, Rahul and Elisa had watched them arguing, trying to find out what the fuss was all about. However, now, they exchanged a look of astonishment as they didn’t want to believe what they had just heard from Sekiada.
“Who knows you are here?” said Sekiada, his voice now heavy and tense. “No one. If I kill you by breaking that skull and if I kill Dali by burning her in fire, the evils will believe anything I say. I’ll tell them how Dansh brought some humans to the Underworld to kill me, killing my wife needlessly since Dansh believed my soul was secured in a bloody woman. I tried to protect her, but Dansh attacked me, so I had to kill him. Unfortunately, the bloody humans burned Dali as well. I failed. I couldn’t do anything. But, fortunately, before the humans killed my wife, I had secured my soul back into my body.”
Little did they know that, as Sekiada spoke, Dali had also entered the chamber. She stood transparent at the door, gazing upon Dansh as she waited for his reply. She knew he was her loyal servant, so she remained quiet, watching as Dansh snapped back at Sekiada. She knew he would kill him at the right moment, when Sekiada would have no chance to defend himself.
She decided she would reward Dansh after Sekiada’s death with his desired wish: letting him finish off the humans.
“I was. I am. And. I will always stay loyal to my lady,” said Dansh. “There’s none other than her. If there were, I’d have never woken her. You know that, too. So why mess with her? Why mess with me?”
“One last time. Will you be on my side?” asked Sekiada.
“I will never be on your side. My service is only for my lady, and for my lady only. Dali, the strongest churel of all time.”
A brief suspenseful silence filled the room as Sekiada paused, his eyes burning in rage.
Dali wished Dansh would kill Sekiada so that they get on with everything else: killing Rahul and Elisa, and returning to earth where they could continue expanding the territory of terror. So much time wasted. Meanwhile, evils were ruining the earth, burning the cities, and massacring humans, and she was missing all of the fun.
Dansh wished to return to Dali so that she would have his protection, whereas Sekiada wished to return to earth, after killing Dansh and Dali, so that he could form his regime with the help of the fallen angels.
And Rahul wished that Sekiada would kill Dansh so that he and Elisa would have the chance to kill Sekiada, and then they together could find Dali and burn her in fire somehow. This way, they might be able to force the other demons to back off.
Everyone stood in silence, their own desires for what happened next burning in their brains.
Suddenly, Dansh lunged for Sekiada, but Sekiada crouched at the same time and snatched the skull from his hand. Dansh tried to grab it back using his magic, his hand outstretched, but Sekiada scratched him with his fingers, which were pointed like a knife. Dansh pulled his hand back in pain, and Sekiada threw the skull at the ground.
Dali didn’t want to believe it. She didn’t want to believe someone could defeat Dansh this easily. He was powerful. He was smart. Her eyes widened in astonishment and rage.
The skull cracked open.
Dansh stared at it in horror. Slowly, as the skull began to burn, he began to burn as well, screaming in pain. In seconds, Dansh turned into ash.
If the soul hadn’t been secured in that skull, and that skull hadn’t been discovered, Dansh would have fought for hours or months or even years with Sekiada. Dansh’s true error was in not securing his skull somewhere safe, and there was nothing she could do about that. Dali was without help now. Infuriated, she just stared as her loyal servant died.
“What?” said Rahul. “That’s unbelievable!”
“You don’t want to believe it was this easy to kill him, right?” asked Elisa.
“Absolutely!” said Rahul. “Both are similarly strong. I thought it would take an hour or so to end this battle. But only a few moments. Wow!”
“I thought the same,” said Elisa. “But it’s good. The sooner it ends, the sooner we can kill the rest.”
Rahul hummed in agreement.
Rahul and Elisa exchanged a glance as they still couldn’t believe all this was real, and Sekiada really had killed Dansh. Rahul looked at him, who was also staring at Dansh’s ash. He was smiling.
Dali now had no other way except to fight solo with Sekiada. She went to rush at him, but she stopped, realizing he was immortal. No one could kill him, except a human woman. She looked down at where his wife was chained in the corner, but she was so weak and dense that she couldn’t fight him.
All the while, Sekiada’s wife kept watching the battle with her blurry vision.
“You ...” she said.
Sekiada looked at Elisa as he believed she spoke.
“You ...” he heard again, the voice was barely audible.
He squinted at his wife.
“... will d-die one, day,” she said.
Only because of utter silence, he could hear her soft voice.
“You, you have re-reversed your spell in in a-arrogant,” she resumed. “I-I’m sure the, girl stan-ding here will k-k-kill you.”
“You’ve been dreaming of my death, I know,” said Sekiada. “But that day is never coming. My death has no assigned date.” He laughed.
“I-I’m sure she will k-kill you you soon,” said Sekiada’s wife.
Now Dali turned to Elisa who just like Rahul kept listening to the conversation between Sekiada and his wife in wonder.
Sekiada finally turned around and glared at Rahul, then Elisa.
“Are you really thinking to kill me?” he asked.
“N-N-No,” said Elisa.
“Better not,” he said.
He shifted his look to Rahul and asked, “Is everything alright?”
Rahul’s brain failed to generate proper words, perhaps in shock of the events or through the distress of replying to Sekiada’s question, and so he remained quiet.
“I’m asking you, boy,” he said, raising his voice.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m fine,” said Rahul, returning to his senses. “Thank you for saving us from him.”
Sekiada looked at Dansh’s ash. “He had to die one day. Then why not today?”
He shifted his look back to Elisa, now as if he was interested in her.
“Victory’s at our feet,” Rahul whispered.
As Sekiada ogled her, Elisa felt hesitation. However, she moved forward, Rahul’s words rushing into her veins like an energy drink. Spirited, she slowly increased her speed toward him. All the while, he kept looking her up and down with his lecherous eyes. Elisa continued to feel hesitant, but she pushed down her feelings of discomfort and continued toward him. When she stopped, Sekiada smiled. He walked forward, reached out, and pushed a long strand of hair that was hanging beside Elisa’s eye behind her ear.
Her heart hammered in fear and uneasiness, making her shake, but she stayed there steady, trying to win his trust. As soon as he was distracted, she would insert her dagger in his gut—but only when the time was right.
But then she realized her dagger wasn’t enough. No weapon could kill him; only a woman could. But how?
And then another thought rushed into her brain. She had an incredible idea. Turn into evil to kill the evil.
She slightly shivered at her own thought, but she had to do it, and so she pushed away any thoughts that tried to convince her otherwise.
She smiled at him.
Sekiada’s feelings for her overflowed, which was clear by the way he looked at her, his gaze fixed on her lips, his own quivering as if they were impatient to test hers.
After a brief pause, Sekiada brought his face towards her and halted when their faces were nearly touching. He closed his eyes and waited for her to lean in. Elisa had to bite back the repulsion at the thought of what he wanted. As if he thought she would actually kiss him! But Elisa knew what she needed to do.
She kept staring at him for a while to allow herself a moment to muster her courage. However, realizing this way could be much easier than any other way of killing him, she buried all her emotions deep down in her brain and brought her lips to his.
Rahul stood quietly, trusting that Elisa knew what she was doing, that this was all to bring Sekiada to his end. No doubt, Rahul hated to see her kiss him, but to save humanity he had to let Elisa continue.
With Sekiada lost in her kiss, Elisa suddenly thrust the dagger into his chest. He opened his eyes in rage and swiftly tried to step away from her, but simultaneously, Elisa pushed the weapon deeper. All he could do was try to hold on to the dagger that was almost halfway through his heart.
Sekiada screamed and tried to step back, but Elisa once more pressed the dagger, and it went deeper into his heart. The chamber echoed with his painful screams.
But she knew this would not kill. He had said, after all, that no weapon could kill him. She had to do this herself. So now, when he was completely weak, she pulled out the dagger with one hand and inserted her other hand into his chest before he could move away. She let her hand reach all the way down into his chest until her fingers felt the touch of his heart, and when they did, Elisa swiftly grasped it in a ball of her fist. And squeezed.
Sekiada, barely suppressing the pain, commanded his lion to attack her by snapping his fingers.
The lion sprinted toward Elisa, but Rahul reacted quickly. As it jumped, Rahul leaped up and swung his sword savagely through the air, severing the lion’s head from its body. The lion’s head fell beside Sekiada, and the body dropped a few feet away from him.
Sekiada screamed in pain at losing his beloved lion, and Elisa tightened her grip on his heart.
Sekiada tried to harm Elisa with his triangle fingers, but the pain was too great, though he did grasp her hand, trying to prevent her from pulling his heart out.
He began scratching her with his fingers. Elisa cried out, and tried her best to pull out the heart. But she had never done something evil like this before and she felt sickened. She felt Sekiada was winning in his attempts to weaken her. She screamed to gather her strength, and then, she gave a final squeeze and pulled his heart out forcefully from his body.
Sekiada fell to the ground, and Elisa gaped at the heart in her hand. He was dead. She let the organ slip from her clenched fist.
And now, to not take any chances of him returning, she severed his head and body with his dagger, cutting him into smaller pieces.
She even threw the pieces out in random directions, just in case he was still immortal and his pieces could join mysteriously.
“He’s dead. Let’s move,” said Rahul, shaken. Elisa was staring at the pieces of Sekiada’s dead body, frozen in horror and wonder. Rahul turned to the woman in the corner. “We must free her before anyone arrives.”
Elisa looked at Rahul with her wet eyes.
“Why’re you crying?”
Elisa glanced at Sekiada’s body and turned back to Rahul.
“I killed him, and I feel evil and zealous at the same time. It-it seems like I’m not even afraid of anyone. Yet, killing him like this makes me feel worse than these demons.”
“You’re not afraid of anyone, but you’re not an evil. You are goddess Durga who takes various avatars to end demons like these,” said Rahul, wanting to keep her courageous and high-spirited.
“Yes. You’re right,” she agreed, keeping her look down at his shoulder as if not daring to meet his eyes. It was almost as if she needed to repeat his words in her head to help her brain remember before she lost her strength and bravery again.
Rahul shifted his sword to his left hand and put his right on Elisa’s cheek, where he stroked it slightly. “I know you’re brave. You’re powerful. You’re strong. You’re fearless. You didn’t murder him. You killed him for the sake of humanity. You saved us. You’re not a murderer.” He shifted his hand to her chin, and pushed it up gently to make her look into his eyes. “You’re Goddess Durga ... The great savior.”
Elisa broke into tears, though they were tears of joy, as Rahul’s words eased the weight on her. For a moment, she had felt like a murderer, but now she felt like the great savior.
She hugged him tightly, her hands bloody and face stained with some blood spatters.
Rahul wrapped his arms around her and stroked her back with his free hand.
After a moment or so, once Elisa had turned off the valve somewhere inside her to stop her tears flowing, she pulled back from the hug, and smiled. Her eyes now filled with fire of bravery. Rahul smiled back and said, “Happy days are near. We only have to kill Dali now.”
The fact was, Rahul wasn’t even sure if that was true. After all, even if they succeeded in killing Dali, that didn’t guarantee their troubles would be over. Dali’s death might scare the evils and force them to return to their world. Or her death could enrage the evils to kill even more humans, to continue hunting innocents in rage. With this second scenario, the apocalypse was still dangling over their future.
So, in short, Rahul had lied, but only to make Elisa feel calmer.
Elisa nodded as if she agreed with him.
Both turned and walked toward the woman who was chained in the dark corner, where the light of cressets barely reached.
All the while, Dali kept watching them. She could have attacked them instantly, but she loved making her enemies feel like they were winning. She enjoyed ambushing them at the very last point when they thought they were about to succeed.
Elisa has killed her enemy, Sekiada, who killed my devoted Dansh. Why not allow her a few more moments of success?
